The Great Barrier ReefBy Alex. pulbrook

How would you feel if someone destroyed your home? This is reality for the animals of the Great Barrier Reef. Sunscreen, coral bleaching, oil, rubbish and many more things are destroying not only the animals that live in the reef but we are destroying the reef itself.

Why does oil affect the Great Barrier Reef? Oil spills are a very big thing. 5 million litres of oil are spilled just in U.S waters per year. Imagine every 5th breath you take you have to drink a cup of oil, this is what the fish, octopuses and all the animals have to do. Their families would be destroyed.

Would you like it if your children didn’t have the opportunity to see the Great Barrier Reef? If people don't take care of the reef this will happen.

Sunscreen affects the Great Barrier Reef a lot. Coral bleaching occurs when too many swimmers get in the water. When they hop in the sunscreen comes right off them and changes the water which in turn affects the coral. This kills the coral and turns it white. There are so many threats to the Great Barrier Reef, and most of them are caused by humans.

Another big issue is plastic and rubbish. In just one year 14 billion pounds of garbage is dumped into the ocean per year. Imagine turtles choking on a piece of plastic that you didn’t put in a bin.

Another threat to the Great Barrier Reef is the outbreaks of crown-of-thorns, AKA starfish. This beast eats away the beautiful coral of the reef. We need to do something about this. Our coral reefs are being destroyed because of this coral eating machine. They can get up to 80cm long. Scientists surveyed reefs and found out that 50 percent of our reefs have been declined over the past 30 years. Crown-of-thorns starfish were responsible for almost half of this decline. We need to find out a way to stop these outbreaks of Crown of Thornes starfish.

As a human colony we need to work together to stop all of these threats. We need to recycle plastic and not throw it on the ground. We can find out a way to stop the Starfish from eating away our coral reefs. We can also try to reduce the amount of oil spills that happen by not letting the oil tankers in so close to the Great Barrier Reef. We need to protect this incredible natural wonder for our future generations.